04-08-2025
City council slashes HR policies
The number of HR policies and procedure documents at Southampton City Council has been slashed.
The council has reduced its documents from 55 to ten.
A review was carried out to modernise and simplify the policies, with many of the existing items found to be out of date.
Kerry Eldridge, director of people and organisational culture, said it was hoped the new policies could be launched across the council as quickly as possible.
Speaking at a governance committee meeting on Monday, July 28, Ms Eldridge said: 'Everyone has been crying for these for quite some time.
'The trade unions quite frankly hate the policies that we are currently utilising.
'I can't say the managers like them either because they struggle to find their way through them.'
The meeting heard the council's people and organisational culture team had been working on reviewing the policies for the past four months using Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) templates.
Feedback had been taken from legal colleagues, trade unions, managers and employees.
Three statutory policies – disciplinary, resolution/grievance and sickness absence – were presented to the governance committee for approval.
A fourth – employee code of conduct – will come forward at a later date when more of the council's governance review is completed.
Meanwhile, the other six documents were procedures on how the council does things within the organisation.
